Prince of Darkness
"Blinded by the treacheries and false hope of an unattainable dream, he wanders further and further into a fate worse than the death he worked so hard to avoid. I pity such a creature, so afraid of the end as to pretend to embrace it. It must be hard being so lonely and hollow..." The Prince of Darkness is the main villain of Bloons TD 7: Dark Times. He is regarded as a faraway evil force that has controlled the events of the world for decades since he brought about the Soul Fracture. While Hordelorde Aulgart is the final boss of the base story, the Prince of Darkness is the TRUE FINAL BOSS, fought at the end of the hidden Arc VI: A Prince's Final Bow, a secret final set of special stages only unlocked after a series of certain events has been completed by the player. The two endings of Arc V provide hints on how to possibly reach this true ending. Lore Origin The Prince of Darkness was not always the lord of the dead and master of the world that we know him as today. He began his humble origins as a magical scholar in the Monkey Kingdom, before retreating northward into the Outlands and to the mountains to further his goals and studies into every art of magic. He was obsessed, and his dream... no his unrelenting desire, was to learn all of the world's secrets and command them to his whim. No spell would go unknown and no scroll unread. As the years passed, the old wizard became isolated and hermetic, residing and stowing away in his mountain lair for years at a time doing nothing but study and practice. That was, until the day he emerged at last after decades and toured the advancing society of the Monkey Kingdom. He was disgusted by what it had become in his absence. To spare his legacy and all of the hard work he had gone through, the soon-to-be Prince of Darkness gathered eight promising magical students and took them to his lair in the north. After much teaching from the now aging wizard, he had grown more fearful of his coming demise. Not ready for his curtain to close, the archmage taught his disciples a final lesson. After holding the dark arts within himself for so long, he finally bore to his students the forbidden knowledge of necromancy. He then instructed them to work in unison to enact a powerful spell that could bring even a powerful wizard such as him back from death. It was not too long after this event that the mage would die of his own old age. Revival Once his disciples had mustered the magical power to bring to life once again their old teacher, they worked together to cast the mighty spell. From the grave rose the Prince of Darkness, the reanimated husk of this once renowned mage. Blessed or cursed, be it your call, with the untold might of death, the Prince of Darkness made his throne and shrine within the catacombs of his old lair. He had been long scheming plans to take control of the Monkey Kingdom. It was not until now, in his undeath, he could finally go through with them. Having gathered his eight disciples into his throne room, he was ready to dispatch of them now that they had out-served their purpose. With a magical blast, he had attempted to kill all eight of his now useless students. And yet... he let one survive, a mistake that would forever haunt him. Now in a permanent state of between the lines of life and death, the Prince of Darkness had all of the time in the world. Preparation The Prince of Darkness used his necromancy and status as powerful lord of the undead to bring together a massive army of resurrected bloons and monkeys alike, both present in the Outlands where he resided. He knew however, that it would take centuries to wait for enough hollow husks to muster a large enough force to present even a moderate threat to the now powerful kingdom. Instead of waiting, the Prince of Darkness sought powerful allies in the Outlands. His name and presence were already feared and well established, so when a rather small and soon-to-die-out faction by the name of the Defiled Horde received invitation to take part in his master plan to bring down the oppressive empire to their south, the Horde's leader, Hordelorde Aulgart, hesitated not a moment in joining. Now with a sound army and established presence in the Outlands, he just needed one more element to ensure his domination over the world... The Soul Fracture. An ancient spell barely legible in even its ancient scripts, the Soul Fracture was an apocalyptic event that could be brought about through immense amounts of preparation, and a cast of exotic material... one of which was seven souls. He had taken this into account when killing his disciples. Their only purpose was to bring him back to life and then serve as components to enacting the Soul Fracture. He had left Festeri alive for that very reason, not expecting her to switch sides. He had grown fond and actually quite attached to Festeri, his prodigy pupil and she almost seemed as if a surrogate daughter to him in his eyes. Putting together the rest of the pieces over the next few years, the Prince and Hordelorde Aulgart were ready to finally put into motion their master plan. The Soul Fracture The Soul Fracture began with a beacon of light, and the permanent darkening of the skies. The sun has not shown its face over the world in decades, since the beginning of the Soul Fracture. The dead had begun to rise again all across the world, loyal immediately to the likes of the Prince of Darkness. It has been 28 years since the Soul Fracture had begun, and during it's events the Prince and his forces had established total domination over the world, taking advantage of the divided and isolated remnants of the Monkey Kingdom. The Defiled Horde are just as his disciples were however... expendable and only useful until their purpose has been served... The Prideshead Resistance After a long unopposed tyranny of 28 years, The Prince finally had a reason to fear, threatened by a light amid his age of night. In the far south, where his armies could never truly get a foothold, a large settlement by the name of Prideshead threatens his malevolent reign. The Prince of Darkness at first was oblivious to the apparent conflicts that such a noble rebellion would cause him. He had crushed hundreds throughout the years before. Convinced Hordemaster Lordigin would be able to put them down, he gave them no thought. That was, until Hordemaster Lordigin was found dead. Prideshead began to directly impact his grasp on the fractured world, seizing many key locations and organizations that enforced his will. Power stations, governmental puppets, and more were taken by Prideshead. Eager to finally meet those that threatened his long unchallenged reign, he appeared before his adversaries shrouded in night. He vowed that he would force them to meet their end. Days later, Prideshead would attempt to capture his invaluable Dark Archives, and that was the final straw that at last forced his hand. Slaving over his summoning grounds, he created the ultimate horror to end his adversaries... the Bone Weaver. But in a fatal clash at the Dark Archives, the Bone Weaver proved ineffective, and Prideshead proved victorious. Realizing they could not reclaim the capitol in their current state, Prideshead thought it best to instead seek an old apprentice of the Prince of Darkness... a certain Festeri Kedavra who, hunted by the forces of the Prince, went into deep recluse in the swamps of the southeast. After fighting through her deadly hordes and at last beating some senses into her, she joins the cause to bring about the end of the Prince and his Soul Fracture. And so the story continues to unfold. Design The Prince of Darkness in Dark Times takes after his Bloons TD 6 equivalent. A very tall skeletal monkey in a mainly black robe. The robe has powerful shoulders with studded spikes coming out of them. A black hood with purple trimming surrounds his head, eyes glowing bright green. As his robe goes down, it becomes more spindly and torn, ending in what is barely a web of loose black strings interweaving to cover the lower body. The sleeves end in purple trimmed cuffs. Instead of bone hands, they appear to made of bright green energy, but still resemble the skeletal structure of a hand. The Prince of Darkness has a skeletal face, with a bare skull being the main part of his head. The Prince has no real bone lower jaw, but instead one made of bright green light. A portion of the skull, surrounding mainly his right eye and stretching in branching means away from it, part of the skull has been charred black in color. From the back of the Prince of Darkness, green flaming wings extend. Battle The Prince of Darkness is the boss of Arc VI: A Prince's Final Bow in the Campaign of Bloons TD 7: Dark Times. He is fought at the end of Round 80 in stage 6-S, Interregnum. Remember that this page uses the Health and Damage system found in DARK TIMES. Information on that damage system can be found here. Stats * Health: 20,000 * Movement Speed: None. * Other Properties: ** The Prince of Darkness is immune to special effects such as critical hits, freezing, stuns, slows, etc. ** When a tower dies within a default Dart Monkey range of him, he will recover 750 health and gain a 20% damage boost for 5 seconds. ** The Prince of Darkness does not directly engage the player via the track. ** As a powerful wizard and a skeletal being, he takes no damage from attacks done from traditionally sharp weapons, and will take 2 less damage from all magical attacks. TBA Trivia * Fought at the end of the completely secret Arc VI, the Prince of Darkness is more of a cherry on top bonus boss than the final boss of the story. Throughout the game Hordelorde Aulgart is the main adversary that constantly gets in the player's way. In a way, this makes the Prince of Darkness more akin to E.N.T.I.T.Y. in Meta's universe than it does a baseline Final Boss: A far bigger scope, hidden encounter that is more an extension of the story rather than the ending. Even without challenging the Prince, his reign is more or less over. * He pretends like he doesn't care that Festeri has turned on him, but deep down he does. It was never his intention to truly hurt her, and she will never be able to know that as she plots his end. * Obviously based on the Path 3, Tier 5 upgrade for the Wizard Monkey in BTD 6 of the same name. * The quote at the top of the page is actually spoken by Hordelorde Aulgart during his battle. * Prone to stabbing backs and breaking deals. His only desire is power (both magical and literal) and control. ** This is why in Ending 2 of Arc V: Pushing Back the Horde, he betrays and kills Hordelorde Aulgart, seizing his soul power and reanimating him as a puppet with which he can use to control the remains of the Defiled Horde himself. Category:Final Bosses Category:Non-Bloon Bosses Category:True Final Bosses